AT HOME ON THE OCEANS
The weather was still thick when we
made a landfall on Cape Brett, but soon,
between the rain squalls, we could make
out sheep farms which, from a distance
at sea, looked like well-kept lawns of coun
try estates.
We were now within seven hundred miles,
air line, of the objective of our whole cruise,
the west coast Sounds, which we had
sailed more than a third of the way around
the world to see.
Located on the southwest coast of the
South Island of New Zealand, the Sounds,
or fiords, were carved out of the Southern
Alps partly by previous glaciers. Narrow,
winding ribbons of water between very
steep and high mountains, they vary from
a half to two miles wide and sometimes
extend inland for twenty miles.
A hundred and sixty-odd years ago Cap
tain Cook, finding in Dusky Sound what he
considered good harbors and a thick stand
of trees "suitable for masts," prophesied
that it would become the site of a large and
thriving city. But the boisterous weather
and exceedingly rocky and mountainous
country all around have defied attempts at
settlement, and one finds the Sounds today
almost as peaceful and uninhabited as when
first discovered. As the excursion steamers
stop only for a few hours at Milford Sound,
it is necessary to go in your own vessel if
you wish to see the other twelve Sounds
thoroughly.
IN THE "ROARING FORTIES"
Being so near our goal, we begrudged
the time necessarily spent in Auckland
making a new suit of sails and changing the
rig of the boat from sloop to ketch. The
ketch rig, however, made the boat easier
to handle in the more boisterous weather of
the "roaring forties" (page 60).
As the season advanced and our impa
tience increased, we decided to go the
shortest but roughest route and headed
north out of Auckland to round North Cape
and sail directly down the Tasman Sea to
the Sounds (map, pages 38-39).
We stopped at the Bay of Islands, for
this bay of smooth waterways is too tempt
ing for any yachtsman to pass. We left it
by moonlight which silvered the scene as
we glided silently along this bold coast.
After a short stop at Whangaroa, with
its fantastic rock formations, we had a
look into the arm where, 130 years ago,
the British ship Boyd was burned.
Sailing on toward North Cape, we won
dered whether we should meet with the
same bad luck that befell Captain Cook
when he was rounding this rocky point.
Head winds, calms, and currents delayed
him for ten days.
A FULL-RIGGED GHOST OF THE PAST
As we neared North Cape, our attention
was attracted to what I at first thought was
a large off-lying rock. Actually we soon
made it out as a ship under full sail (page
62). We passed her off Parengarenga Har
bour at sunset and she proved to be the
ship Joseph Conrad.*
All of her crew were lined up on the fore
castle to look us over. Apparently a small
vessel flying the American flag was as
strange to them off these sand dunes as
they were to us. My dream of passing a
full-rigged ship at sea was at last realized.
Cape Maria Van Diemen, the northwest
ern point of New Zealand, had the appear
ance of having been just newly finished by
the Creator, and though some might call it
barren, to us it was beautiful. Here, how
ever, we felt the full surge of the long south
west swell of the Tasman, as we were out
of the lee of New Zealand.
We shaped our course for Milford Sound,
running the length of the Tasman with the
usual summer weather while the barometer
fluctuated from high to low in quick suc
cession. After a hard southeast gale, which,
being an offshore wind, blows the clouds to
sea, we got our first glimpse of the Southern
Alps, sighting Mount Aspiring and Pem
broke Peak, the landfall for Milford
Sound.
WATERFALLS THAT BLOW AWAY
It was night when we finally made the
entrance to Milford Sound, and cautiously
felt our way into Anita Bay. As in most
of the anchorages in the Sounds, the bottom
slopes so steeply that an anchor will not
hold with offshore winds. Since any pos
sible anchorage depth is very near the shore,
a hook is dropped, then a line from the stern
is made fast to a rock or large tree (page
64). By the time our anchor touched bot
tom we seemed directly under the trees and
within jumping distance of the rocks.
In the morning fog came rolling rapidly
in from the sea and soon a nasty squall
shut off everything from view. Naturally
* See "North About," by Alan J. Villiers, in the
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, February, 1937.